In a talk with Cartmel, Briggs said he had watched the show "avidly" as a kid and teenager, but when he reached his early 20s, he believed he was starting to outgrow it. He said that while William Hartnell's First Doctor was not easy to empathise with, he still had a curiosity, cared about things and "wasn't just bad tempered". Briggs believed that lacking these hooks was what went "wrong" with Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor, who was a similarly difficult character. (DWM 473)

Briggs described Russell T Davies' approach to Doctor Who in the 21st century as "a vivid re-imagining, taking the basic principles [of the 20th century series] and doing them in the way TV is now made instead of just continuing from the 1980s". He was "greatly in admiration of both Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat in developing their new versions". However, he did not believe that either Davies or Moffat were reframing Ace when they created their own ideas for contemporary companions. Instead he thought that the "great idea" that "young women from contemporary Earth make a good dynamic for a companion" was just something Briggs, Cartmel (with his outline for "Alf"), Davies and Moffat were drawn towards separately. (DWM 473)